File photoMorristown police have stepped up patrols near the town's bars on Friday and Saturday nights.

MORRISTOWN — It's too soon to tell whether stepped up patrols will really help keep bar crowds under control, says one of the Morristown residents who recently told the town council rowdy patrons are causing more and more problems.

Police began eight weeks of extra enforcement at the beginning of the month, but Tricia Rosenkilde of Macculloch Avenue said she's waiting until at least a few more weeks go by before passing and judgment on the effort.

Last week was July 4, so Morristown was unusually quiet, she said. Screaming, littering and public urination seemed down overall — but probably because Morristown's bar crowds had headed to the shore, she said.

"I think when everyone comes back after Labor Day, then it would be the time to say we need extra police," Rosenkilde said. "We just need some oversight of the situation."

Rosenkilde lives around the corner from a proposed bowling alley and bar the Walsh family — which has controlling interest in three current Morristown bars — hopes to open on DeHart Street. She was among those who attended a liquor license transfer hearing for the proposed bowling alley in June, saying things are getting out of control in the neighborhood.

A group of residents also came to the township council in late June, drawing out the same sort of complaints, as the council considered liquor license renewals for all bars in town. That evening, Morristown announced a special subcommittee meant to get at the concerns, and to find ways for bar owners to share in enforcement costs, Morristowngreen.com reported at the time.

Rosenkilde said that's a good start, though she'd like to see the effort include more people from throughout Morristown's neighborhoods. Rosenkilde herself lives just a few blocks form the Morristown Green, the de facto center of downtown. She said the problem spreads out much further.

"They're upset because they've invested in their properties, but they have garbage and noise and vomit," she said. "It's frustrating. And it's an issue that's building up. It hasn't been so bad, but it's getting worse."

Estate attorney William Walsh — whose family is also looking to open a bar on Early Street, catering to Morristown's substantial Latino community — said he's all for helping with police enforcement. But he said the split among bar owners has to be fair.

He said, for instance, the 800-patron-accomodating Iron Bar — effectively just below the luxury 40 Park development, in which many neighbors who've raised concern before the town council live — should have a greater burden than his family's Tashmoo bar, next to the proposed bowling alley. Tashmoo, he said, only can accommodate a few dozen people at a time, and can't possibly cause of as much of a disturbance as something like Iron Bar.

"We have two bars on DeHart. The highrise people have no problem with them," he said. "Their concerns (with bigger bars) were just the tipping point."

Walsh said he works to be a good neighbor, and welcomes more discussions on how to address noise and nuisance concenrs. But he said residents need to be realistic — nightlife is part of what defines Morristown.

"It's like moving into Green Bay, Wis., and saying 'I hate these damn football fans,'" he said. "They bought into it and should have known."

Rosenkilde is accustomed to city life. She moved her family to Morristown from Manhattan eight years ago, and chose deliberately to be somewhere more lively than, say, the rural parts of Morris County further west.

"But I think people who think of Morristown as a city are not on the right track," she said. "It does have some city aspects, no doubt. But it has to have some balance. I just don't want to be calling the police at 3 a.m. to be taking care of something in the street. I don't want to be a stick in the mud when it comes to development of this town, but it's getting out of control."

A continued hearing for the bowling alley liquor license transfer will take place July 18. A board of adjustment hearing concerning the Latino bar, which was awarded a liquor license transfer earlier this month, will be the same night, Walsh said.

Attempts to reach Morristown Mayor Timothy Dougherty at his township office Wednesday and Thursday were unsuccessful. A worker there said he was preparing for vacation and might not be available to return calls.